Spiritual Tattoo, A Cultural History of Tattooing, Piercing, Scarification, Branding and Implants

Spiritual Tattoo

Spiritual Tattoo by John Rush, who was (and perhaps still is) a professor of anthropology at Sierra College, Rocklin, California, teaching physical anthropology and magic, witchcraft, and religion, contains a history of tattoos and piercings etc. and is really a book about inflicting pain on the body for all manner of purposes, whether tribal or religious, or merely cosmetic.

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He deals with, what I would call, "balance" of body and spirit. He writes that to him "spiritual" has nothing to do with one's relationship or subservience to a deity or personified force in the universe. He writes that this type of thinking places the individual in the subservient position to energy because you can only be less than "it", never part of it and certainly never it's equal. Moreover, believing in an all-powerful God is a conditioning story that can lead to subservience to a ruler in the real world, the physical world, and subservience to the flesh, and this has little to do with spirituality. In his view spirit refers to the energy that informs all things and is neutral in the same way that gas used to light your stove can be used to cook food as well as manufacture illicit drugs.

His view of the body is that your body is not you. This is apparently a typical statement in Hindu tradition, which considers that God is within you and therefore you are really the person within that is not known and must be found. What you find, when you find it, is the divine within you and that the physical body is of no real importance except while you're alive. He explains that in the Hindu tradition your body is a mere container and when you die the container dies, but your atman, that energy informing your cells, goes on to inhabit other containers in an endless round of life, death, and reincarnation. This is an old (non-Judeo-Christian) idea.

The Biblical view is that human beings are 'embodied' and that bodies are important. When Christians speak of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and more generally the resurrection of the dead they are speaking of a physical resurrection of the physical body; it is not just a 'spiritual' resurrection.

John Rush writes about a lot of issues in this book of nearly 230 pages. Much of what I have not mentioned is about pain and suffering; the pain and suffering of being tattooed or pierced and the meaning behind the acceptance of such pain, very often rooted in trauma.

John Rush says some very odd things about Christianity, which are neither biblical or traditional, for instance, on page 176 of his book he writes:

"Some traditions, like Islam and Christianity, allow all manner of inhuman behavior towards others as long as there is an asking for forgiveness. Even repeated murders, rapes, robberies, and physical and emotional abuse towards others are forgiven by accepting Allah, Jesus, or God as your Savior; and that's all that is required – your soul is redeemed."

Anyone who knows anything about the Judeo-Christian Scriptures knows that as far as Christianity is concerned this is wrong and a massive mischaracterization of the forgiveness of God. I would recommend the author reads the Book of Romans, specifically chapter 6 where Paul (St. Paul) asks the question, "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" Paul makes it very clear that if you have become a Christian and have received the forgiveness of God for your sins you cannot carry on in those sins, you are to repent and turn away from them, not to "repeat them over and over again", expecting God to forgive you again and again for the same things. This was an accusation against the Christians at the very beginning and has never been true of Christianity, of true biblical Christianity.

However, this is not a book that is promoted as a Christian book; it's a book that deals generally with spirituality and with tattooing and piercing etc., about the history of tattoos etc. and must be read in the light of that. My point is that John Rush has a very unusual view of certain Christian doctrines and may have unusual views of Hindu doctrines. Finally, I would say that Spiritual Tattoo is well worth a read; it is illustrated and quotes research and literature as he takes you through a landscape of tattoos and pain!

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